Fingerprinting now required to sign IL deeds

Beginning 6/1/09, fingerprinting will be required for deeds that transfer Illinois residential real estate. In the past, deeds simply required a notary. Now, the notary must take the right thumbprint of the seller and on a separate “notarial record.” The notary has to keep the notarial record for seven years. Thankfully, this does not apply to deeds to living trusts.

This is a really dumb law. It simply adds an extra layer of hassle to a real estate sale. Attorneys will not want to notarize deeds anymore because of the seven year record keeping rule. Title companies will charge to create and store the original notarial record and Sellers will be forced to come to a closing that they otherwise would have been able to skip.

There were many fraud cases involving the sale of real estate in the past few years, but I doubt that getting a thumbprint would have prevented any of those.

Here’s a piece on the fingerprinting requirement from CBS (thanks to Matt Hernacki of ReMax Unlimited for pointing out the CBS story).